| Issue |
E3S Web Conf.
Volume 119, 2019
Science and the Future 2 “Contradictions and Challenges”
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 00021 | |
| Number of page(s) | 5 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/201911900021 | |
| Published online | 27 September 2019 | |
The use of drones in the maintenance of photovoltaic fields
1
Solar Innovation and Sustainability, Enel Green Power,
Rome,
Italy
2
Politecnico di Torino, Dip. Energia, corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24,
10129 Torino,
Italy
* Corresponding author: gabriele.malgaroli@polito.it
Enel Green Power is an Italian company which realises and manages large photovoltaic (PV) plants around the world. The company is involved in a huge number of research projects and one of them involves the use of drones for PV inspection in order to guarantee the correct operation of the plants. In this paper, the use of drones the maintenance of PV plants is analysed from a technical and economic point of view, as function of plant size. First, the use of drones for thermography and visual inspection is briefly described, then, on the basis of on-field activities, the technical specifications of drones and the procedure for the inspection are defined. The results of a thermal infrared analysis performed on six PV plants are analysed. In particular, the failure rates of PV modules are estimated, describing each failure. Finally, an economic analysis is performed in order to evaluate the competitiveness of drones for PV inspection compared to manual maintenance.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
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